Except that universal incomes are basically adult allowances provided by Daddy Government. So they are regressive in the sense that they're an idealistic childhood notion that immature adults keep trying to carry forward into adulthood.
"Because that's the way it has always been" doesn't satisfy. The same was true for a whole lot of things throughout history that suddenly . . . weren't.
This is why [head taxes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_tax) are the textbook example of regressive taxation.
And it's why giving out a UBI [a head rebate?] is inherently & unambiguously progressive.
EITC is more complicated.
By nature of being a tax credit, any EITC must phase in as taxable income increases. In the current system, you get more money from the EITC if you earn $16K than if you earn $10K. The more you expand it, the larger the phase-in section needs to be.
The current system also phases out with higher income levels, so if you earn $200K, you're won't get anything from the EITC. This makes it 'more progressive' than UBI, when considered in isolation for the appropriate income range.
But this aspect of the EITC is already in the machinery for income tax. The phase out window roughly corresponds to moving the 25% tax threshold half-way into the 15% one.
A UBI wouldn't be implemented without a change to income tax, and most advocates would largely pay for UBI with additional income taxes.
At the lowest income levels, a system with a UBI is by definition more progressive than one with an EITC. Everything else is up to the implementation.
Significantly increasing the earned income tax credit.
Warren Buffett has been pushing this for a long time as a superior alternative to increasing the minimum wage. We can push to $15 / hour equivalent without punishing businesses that can't afford the minimum wage at that level. Few people on either side are listening to him however; Democrats in Congress are mindlessly latched onto the minimum wage as the only solution, and Republicans dislike expanding such benefits in general. It can be done without changing much about how the system works and it would immediately begin boosting the standard of living for the bottom 1/2 of workers. The EITC is superior to the universal basic income, as it doesn't needlessly give money to the well-off (ie it isn't inherently regressive) and the US could actually implement a higher and broader EITC system immediately.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/better-than-raising-the-minimum...